The American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations have sued schools before over the equal distribution of resources, but a new lawsuit charges Palm Beach schools’ low graduation rates show the schools are violating students’ rights to a high-quality education, according to a story by the Palm Beach Post.
“We’re really making a more basic point,” Chris Hansen, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU, told the newspaper. “Graduating from high school is virtually the minimum requirement for success. A large percentage of the students are being essentially written off.”
While 71.8 percent of students in the county graduated on time last school year — a rate that is higher than five of the other six largest urban districts in Florida — the graduation rate for Black and Hispanic students is significantly below that of Whites. More than 80 percent of Whites graduated on time last year, just 55 percent of Blacks and 64 percent of Hispanics graduated on time, the newspaper reported.
The ACLU calls on the district adopt a more accurate method of determining graduation rates and to improve rates for students in every racial group, poor students and English-language learners.
The school district did not comment on the lawsuit.
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